


Vast Formless Things

by Frostfire



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-07
Updated: 2005-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-23 16:41:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/928757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frostfire/pseuds/Frostfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s morning, two days later, and Todd’s standing in their room, holding his chemistry book.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vast Formless Things

It’s morning, two days later, and Todd’s standing in their room, holding his chemistry book.

He picked it up. He can’t remember why.

He keeps having these moments, moments of memory loss. He’ll be in a room and not remember how he got there. Talking to someone and he can’t remember what he’s saying. And sometimes, just—blank. A second where he doesn’t know his name, doesn’t know where he is or what he’s doing or _anything_. Just—nothing.

Every time the moments stop, it hurts.

He’s been reading poetry, trying to get the words to push everything else out of his head, but he keeps finding poems that—last night, he opened the book at random and found Poe, _Lo! 't is a gala night_ _/ Within the lonesome latter years._ _/ An angel throng, bewinged, bedight_ _/ In veils, and drowned in tears,_ _/ Sit in a theatre to see_ _/ A play of hopes and fears,_ _/ While the orchestra breathes fitfully / The music of the spheres._ He couldn’t stop reading, couldn’t make himself close his eyes and shut the words out, even though all he saw was Neil, Neil everywhere, Neil laughing, Neil as Puck, Neil yelling and reading Whitman and pushing Todd down on his bed and kissing him until neither of them could breathe. _Drowned in tears_. He remembers falling in the snow, choking on tears and vomit until he thought he would suffocate and fall right after Neil. _Drowned in tears. Drowned in tears_.

The chemistry book hits the floor like a missile. Todd jumps, and looks at his hands. They’re shaking.

Time jumps, and he’s in the hallways. Charlie’s door is open, Charlie lying on his bed, awake and dressed, while Cameron sleeps. Todd’s fingers dig in hard when they close on Charlie’s wrist.

Charlie follows him unquestioningly, like the first time, like Todd will lead him into Faerie as long as no one says a word. Down the stairs, out the door, across the lawn, and by the time they reach the woods he’s running, because he doesn’t know if he can keep it in anymore, and if anyone hears there will be questions and punishment, and—and—

Far enough in, maybe, or maybe not, but it doesn’t matter anymore because Todd’s opened his mouth and started screaming. Wild, tearing shrieks, hurting his throat and scaring the birds, and he’s—he’s— _he’s_ the sweaty-toothed madman now, screaming and screaming and screaming.

Neil. _Neil_. How could he do it, how could he just _die_ and leave Todd here with all this empty space inside him, curled in an empty room and an empty bed and an empty _soul_.

When he stops and drags in air, his fingers are numb on Charlie’s wrist.

“Don’t,” he whispers, while Charlie watches his face intently, “don’t let me go.”

And Charlie nods, and pulls Todd into his chest. He’s suddenly surrounded by Charlie, breathing Charlie in, pressed up against him, and he’s stopped being able to tell whether he’s crying or not.

He thinks Charlie cries some, with his face pressed into Todd’s hair, chest jerking a little under Todd’s cheek. If he does, he stops soon, because there’s a long, long time with just the cold outside and Charlie inside, and all of it still and silent and frozen.

“Todd?” says Charlie after the long, long time is over.

He tries to talk. It almost works. But Charlie keeps going anyway.

“You wouldn’t—you wouldn’t do—anything. Anything stupid. Would you?”

He breathes. Whispers into Charlie’s shirt, “Why do you think I brought you with me?”

Moment of silence, and “Oh, _God_. Todd, you can’t. You _can’t_. You know what it would do to us, what it’d do to Mr. Keating, what it—”

“I know,” he says, and Charlie shuts up. “I know. Most of the time.”

“ _Todd_.”

He’s laughing, a little, pressed against Charlie’s shirt. Short, breathy hysteria. “It only takes one time for it not to matter anymore,” he says. Swallows the laughter down. “So I brought you. I wanted to come back.”

Charlie’s pressing his lips against Todd’s hair. Soft, desperate kisses, and he doesn’t think Charlie even realizes he’s giving them. “Thank you,” he says. “And—if you ever—any time, day or night, I don’t care if Cameron tells Mr. Nolan or calls the _police_ —”

“I know,” he says. “I know. Why I brought you. Don’t—don’t stop doing that.” His voice breaks.

Neil used to watch him while they kissed, eyes darting over Todd before he set his mouth down, like it was important to see him before-kiss, after-kiss, like he couldn’t get enough of seeing Todd with his eyes fluttered closed and his mouth fallen open.

Or—sometimes, after rehearsals, he’d come home and pounce, kiss Todd over and over, full of his own exuberance—Todd thought of Whitman, all the time, every time, Neil so _himself_ , so spilling over with—with _Life immense in passion, pulse, and power_. He quoted Whitman into Neil’s mouth, sometimes, and neither of them could hear him, but he knew what he was saying, and Neil—Neil knew.

Charlie’s kissing with a desperation that Neil never had, because when Neil was this upset, he drew into himself and wouldn’t let Todd in. Wouldn’t let anyone in. Wouldn’t—

He turns his face up, blind, and Charlie’s mouth lands on his cheek. And there’s a sudden, frozen pause, while Charlie realizes what he’s doing and almost almost stops—but Todd makes a noise. And Charlie keeps going, and Todd knows he’s crying again because he can taste it in Charlie’s mouth.

Neil kissed like Whitman, but Charlie kisses like Poe. No more _Life immense_ —no more—don’t _think_ , Todd, _don’t think about it_ because he doesn’t want to be on his knees throwing up in the snow, he doesn’t—Charlie doesn’t kiss like Neil. Not like Whitman—Charlie kisses _in veils, and drowned in tears_. Charlie opens Todd’s mouth with his tongue, and oh God, he’s remembering the rest— _And much of Madness, and more of Sin, And Horror the soul of the plot._

Before today, Todd has never been kissed with horror. He fists his hands in Charlie’s shirt and kisses back.

The last person he tasted was Neil. The last person he tasted—and now he’s panicking, not wanting to wash the taste of Neil off his tongue—and oh, there’s a poem in that, somewhere. He drags in air and kisses Charlie again. He doesn’t know when this turned around, but now he’s pushing Charlie against a tree, tearing at his shirt—

The last person he tasted—

_Out—out are the lights—out all! / And over each quivering form / The curtain, a funeral pall, / Comes down with the rush of a storm._

Charlie’s skin is freezing, cold-like-death _don’t think about it_ Todd bends his head and tastes. Licks down Charlie’s breastbone, wonders if there’ll be flakes of ice on Charlie’s chest when they’re finished. He’s still crying, trying to breathe around it— _drowned in tears, oh God let it happen, let them rise up and choke me, fill my lungs till I fall suffocated into the snow—how can anything ever hurt this much—_ he stops, pushes his face into Charlie’s chest, and tries so hard not to scream again.

When he’s swallowed it down, when he can lift his head, he sees little pinpoints of blood where his fingers dug into Charlie’s arms. Charlie’s looking down at him, and maybe hasn’t even noticed. “Todd,” he says. His voice sounds broken, like he’s swallowed glass. “You don’t have to. You don’t—”

“I’m drowning,” he says. It doesn’t sound like him. “I’m drowning and drowning, but it never _ends_.” _Out—out are the lights—out all!_ If he’s drowning, why can’t he just fail to draw his last breath and have it be _over_?

“Todd,” says Charlie. “Todd. It’s—here. Sit down.” And he’s lowering both of them onto the ground, right near the evergreen’s trunk where it’s bare. “Just breathe for a little while, okay? Just breathe.”

Todd tries. He tries, and he keeps trying, and Charlie pulls him in and kisses his forehead, which almost helps.

He knows how the poem ends. _While the angels, all pallid and wan, / Uprising, unveiling, affirm, / That the play is the tragedy, "Man,” / And its hero, the Conqueror Worm._

“Breathe,” says Charlie, again. He breathes. He’s drowning just the same.  


end  


**Author's Note:**

> The Poe quotes are all from "The Conqueror Worm." The Whitman quote is from "One's-Self I Sing."


End file.
